The victories of Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock in the U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia surprised many people. But their victories did not surprise Mr. Ossoff or Reverend Warnock.
And their successes were certainly not surprising to Ms. Stacey Abrams, whose approach to politics is a successful contrast to Democratic Party politics nationally.
The two Democratic Senate candidates were a striking shift from previous recruits, who tended to be white moderates, and stepped gingerly, and sometimes awkwardly, around the God and guns issues crucial to white voters who had become disenchanted with Democrats.
Mr. Ossoff, with his degrees from Georgetown and the London School of Economics, speaks without a hint of Southern twang; he could hail from Santa Monica, or Portland. He would also be the first Jewish person to be elected to the Senate from Georgia.
Mr. Warnock is the kind of preacher who sees activism as central to the mission of the Black church. As pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, he has embraced Dr. King’s philosophy of economic justice as a corollary to racial justice.
In effect, the two men ran as themselves. As unabashed liberals. In Georgia.
*You may be wondering about the name of Abigail Spanberger in the headline of this blog article. Ms. Spanberger is the person who exemplifies the national Democratic approach to elections. She famously melted down during a telephone conference call among Democratic Members of the House of Representatives, blaming Progressives for the loss of Democratic seats in the House in 2020.
It seems that the national Democratic party needs to look at how it does things just as much as it needs to look at how things are now done in Georgia. Not a single Progressive lost a House seat in 2020. Not one. Now, two Senators are coming to Washington who ran "as unabashed liberals. In Georgia."
Faith Over Fear, Ms. Spanberger. Faith Over Fear, Democratic National Committee.
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